The Hindu Business Line : Initial rain burst likely over Punjab, Haryana

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan. 2 Night temperatures over North and Northwest India will gradually show an increasing trend as clouds build up ahead of the arrival of the next western disturbance.

Associated northwesterlies are expected to herald the long-awaited wet climes of varying intensity across the international border during the weekend and into the next.

According to the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the week ending January 9 would see rainfall exceeding 300 per cent to 500 per cent of the normal lashing parts of the North and the Northwest.

Seasonal rainfall (October 1 to December 26) has been scanty over most part of the region with east Rajasthan and north Madhya Pradesh (-97 per cent); west Uttar Pradesh (-95 per cent); west Rajasthan (-93 per cent) and Haryana-Chandigarh-Delhi (-92 per cent) piling up the worst deficits.

INITIAL BLOW-UP

East Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and west Uttar Pradesh are some of the areas expected to benefit from the rains forecast to range from 8.5 cm to 12.5 cm during the week.

It is another matter some of these regions house among the best irrigated lands. The areas housing rain-fed seasonal crops may have to extend their wait until successor western disturbances drift into the country. The first of these might cross in as early as January 10, according to indications.

NCEP projections show the rain footprint extending along a south-southeast axis into the Indo-Gangetic plains. In this manner, wet weather is shown to accentuate over east-northeast India later during the week as per predictions by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

STORMY OUTBREAK

The emerging wet weather in the North and Northwest is expected to become entrenched with the turn of the week. The causative western disturbance would emerge as an extension of the season’s first big rainy and stormy outbreak in northern and eastern Arabia together with vast stretches of Iran. It may get unleashed over the UAE early next week, according to Mr Jim Andrews of AccuWeather.com.

According to the India Meteorological Department, the prevailing cold wave to severe cold wave conditions over some of Indo-Gangetic plains and north Rajasthan are likely to continue during the next two days as well. Isolated rain/snow is likely over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand from Friday.

Isolated rain/thundershowers are likely over Tamil Nadu and Puducherry from Thursday onwards as an easterly wave becomes active over the Bay of Bengal. But northwesterlies are seen blowing away its northern flanks in a northeast direction away from north coastal Tamil Nadu and south coastal Andhra Pradesh.

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